BlackBerry’s KEY2 LE is cheaper, brighter but watered down

Mobile Miscellany: week of April 29th, 2013

If you didn't get enough mobile news during the week, not to worry, because we've opened the firehose for the truly hardcore. This week brought a leak of the BlackBerry R-Series smartphone in red, a clever new notification system from the Paranoid Android team and quarterly earnings from Leap Wireless, the parent company of Cricket. These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore all that's happening in the mobile world for this week of April 29th, 2013.

BlackBerry 'R-Series' handset leaked in red

If the BlackBerry Q10 seems appealing but sits outside of your price range, the company's R-Series smartphones might be right up your alley, which stand to replace the Curve lineup. We've previously seen one of the handsets in white, but this week brought an attractive QWERTY handset that's draped in red. There's little new to share in way of specs or pricing, but current rumors peg the R-Series between $300 and $400 off-contract. [Thanks, Joel] [N4BB]

Paranoid Android teases Halo, a pop-up notification system

Paranoid Android is building off of its pop-up multitasking feature with a new tease -- this time, a system-wide notification system known as Halo that resembles the chat heads from Facebook Home. The idea is to give users immediate access to their notifications, even from within full-screen apps. Thanks to the pop-up multitasking system, you'll also find the ability to respond to messages and the like, without ever leaving the main app. Halo isn't yet available to the public, but you can find a preview of what to expect in the following video. [RootzWiki]

Leap Wireless reveals Q1 2013 earnings

Leap Wireless, the parent company of Cricket, revealed that it hemorrhaged cash during the first three months of 2013, which came to light in its latest earnings report. The company posted a net loss of $109 million for Q1, which is based on revenues of $789.9 million. Cricket lost 93,037 customers during the first three months, as compared to 258,000 net additions just one year ago. In all, Cricket currently holds 5.2 million customers and 54 percent of them use smartphones. Going forward, Cricket will introduce five additional LTE smartphones to its roster, most notably the Galaxy S 4. Meanwhile, the company also reported that while iPhone sales have improved since it introduced a financing option, it's unlikely that Leap will purchase any devices beyond its initial commitment. [FierceWireless]

Other random tidbits

CTIA reports that network data usage climbed 69.3 percent between 2011 and 2012, which tipped the charts at 1.468 trillion megabytes for 2012. What's more, the report also pegs the US market with 326.4 million subscribers and 76.4 million prepaid users. [FierceWireless]

BlackBerry is now offering users of BlackBerry 7.0 OS an incentive to upgrade to BlackBerry 7.1: a bunch of free apps. Among the selection, you'll find BeWeather, DriveSafely Pro, FIFA 13, Photo Studio Pro, The Sims 3 Supernatural and many more. The promotion extends now through June 30th and is open to those in France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom. [BlackBerry]